'Top Secret America': How Safe Are We?

Military personnel on a street in Watertown during pursuit of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects
(Torre St. Savior)

After 9/11, the Bush administration vowed to do everything in its power to prevent another attack. But more than a decade later -- and after billions of dollars have been spent on counter-terrorism efforts -- are we safer? And if so, why weren't authorities able to use intelligence they had on Tamerlan Tsarnaev to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing?

Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counterterrorism tells FRONTLINE, “You can look, if you're objective at all of this money and all of this effort and say, 'What would've happened if we hadn't done that?' In almost every case, nothing would have happened.”

Clarke is just one of many experts interviewed in "Top Secret America: 9/11 to the Boston Bombings." The documentary, which airs tonight, follows the reporting of Dana Priest, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The Washington Post. She is also co-author of “Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State." She tells The Takeaway where the United States war on terror stands now, nearly a dozen years after 9/11.